So I know almost nothing of philosophy. But I do know that it's been at a dead end in terms of contributions to the world for a very long time, and I have heard scientists imply that it's sort increasingly looked-down-upon in academia. Further, I feel like an incredibly high number of Christians I know are philosophy majors. I am starting to suspect that there is some chance that in my lifetime the field will be more or less abandon by unbiased thinkers, and will sort of be bought out by religion, and have its academically credible brand name and some of its argumentative devices perverted as a gruesome apologistic tool. Is this just ignorant paranoia? Like, is there enough of a peer review structure or internal method to prevent this from happening? And am I way off that it's even a trending gesture?

12. When menstruating, use a product that right for your menstrual flow. A tampon too big can irritate and develop fungus. A product left in too long can cause bacteria or fungus build up. Products can be changed at least every 4 hours. Except when sleeping, they can be left in for the night

So I know almost nothing of philosophy. But I do know that it's been at a dead end in terms of contributions to the world for a very long time, and I have heard scientists imply that it's sort increasingly looked-down-upon in academia. Further, I feel like an incredibly high number of Christians I know are philosophy majors. I am starting to suspect that there is some chance that in my lifetime the field will be more or less abandon by unbiased thinkers, and will sort of be bought out by religion, and have its academically credible brand name and some of its argumentative devices perverted as a gruesome apologistic tool. Is this just ignorant paranoia? Like, is there enough of a peer review structure or internal method to prevent this from happening? And am I way off that it's even a trending gesture?

vb would be better at answering this, but I agree there is a lot of conversation on the subject mostly due to the advances in nuerobiology and fMRI imaging etc. There seems to be an explosion of conversations about things like Free Will for example that scientists are addressiing vs philosophers and theologians.

As Eric Idle wrote: You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!

I my experience it's just the opposite, but I'm sure that it could be happening nationwide. (plus, RR makes a good point about science in general.)I took a couple philosophy classes at Iowa State in the 90's and one last year, and they were all anti-religion. The teacher last year was a full-on socialist and atheist, and the class was called the exact title of this thread. We spent every class dissecting the stupidity of deist philosophers of the past.The papers we wrote were completely subjective, and it you ripped on religion you got a good grade.

iZuma, on 20 August 2012 - 11:32 AM, said:

napa I was jesus christing suited, you guys just slipped in before me.

Your odd concern about "conspiracy" aside - yes, "philosophy" is on its way out.I have quite a bit to say on the subject, but I'm way too apathetic here to go on at length, so in short:1. Philosophy was awesome. It brought critical thinking, epistemology, logic, reason and the scientific method into focus.2. "Natural philosophy" was the branch of philosophy, generally speaking, that noticed the previous things were what worked, and used them axiomatically.3. There was a divide between what is now often described as "mental masturbation" and Natural philosophy... the latter of which became methodology in the "scientific method".4. From there "Natural philosophy" came to be known as science.5. Skipping many, many steps here... the end result is a divide between "philosophy" and "science". Science, or more accurately, the scientific method, now being "philosophy that works". Or "philosophy that can be applied". Or "philosophy that can be differentiated from nonsense, bullshit, and the irrelevant." And the academic term "philosophy" being everything else. By everything else I mean philosophy that isn't in any way quantifiable, testable, empirical... meaning philosophy that isn't decipherable from shit that is made up. Disciplines like, to be obvious, "theology". You'll find a number of scientists and critical thinkers who are derogatory toward "philosophy" these days... some of whom will even neglect to acknowledge that the axiomatic underpinnings of science are, by necessity, philosophical. This is because philosophy is currently oft used in a "postmodernist" - apologetic - way, as you've pointed out.This will add to the decline of philosophy as a stand-alone study (as anything more than a basic educational prerequisite), since what philosophy pragmatically had to contribute is now axiomatic to anyone who isn't religious/willfully ignorant/pathetically uneducated. That is to say it will probably be pretty popular in the U.S. for a long while yet.

'"Luck" is people taking the laws of probability personally; Luck is the excitement of bad math.'

I agree with Randy and Spade. A lot of academic philosophy evolved into other more specific fields. For instance, philosophers who thought about the way the mind works (people like William James) essentially started the field of psychology, where much of that work now takes place. Now, cognitive science and neuroscience have usurped a lot of the progress that philosophy was making, with different techniques. Basically, instead of just using reason and logic to solve certain questions we have developed additional technologies and tools to get better answers. It's almost impossible now to do pure philosophy without referencing some branch of science (linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, physics, etc.).

General philosophy classes are closer to history lessons than anything else. People actually getting advanced degrees in philosophy are self-important and socially inept "thinkers", interested in being a weed-smoking professor with elbow patches hot teaching assistants, or religious and looking to have paper to give them "scientific" credibility.

12. When menstruating, use a product that right for your menstrual flow. A tampon too big can irritate and develop fungus. A product left in too long can cause bacteria or fungus build up. Products can be changed at least every 4 hours. Except when sleeping, they can be left in for the night